Cheung Chau

It had been some time since we'd booked the work Junk (i.e. boat), so we headed out a couple of weeks back to Cheung Chau (Long Island). I'd been once before - about 6 years ago. Little had changed: there's still a huge number of fishing boats in the harbour and cycle rickshaws on land. Although I did see one thing unknown to the island in 2005: a car. There was a tiny little police run around, but it seems of limited use on an island where the streets are steep and narrow. They've also got public baths in the truest sense of the word.

posted from Bloggeroid

Lights

The proliferation of Christmas lights is starting to become overwhelming. From our living room you can see a mass of different colours flashing. Flashing lights are not unheard of here with the nightly Symphony of Lights, but the Christmas lights achieve a whole new level. Sadly photos can't quite capture it. Across the harbour in Kowloon, there's a particularly fine collection of hypnotic colours. With Chinese New Year at the end of January, we may be treated to them for some weeks to come.

posted from Bloggeroid

New experiences

On Thursday, I experienced a sensation which I hadn't felt in a fair few months. After mulling it over for a few minutes, I realised what it was: I felt cold. Walking down the street in mid-December in my shirt, it felt a bit nippy.

On Saturday, we headed to Sai Kung for a trip out to an island about thirty minutes by slow boat. Deserted apart from our little group, it was great. It also has the distinction of being the only time I have ever been sunburnt in December.

posted from Bloggeroid

Parks

We made a lovely discovery on Saturday afternoon. It turns out that if you walk about 20 minutes south of where we live you end up in countryside with rolling green hills and streams. It feels a million miles away from the city. The well protected national parks have to be one of Hong Kong's finest features.

It's now the ideal time to go out exploring. The summer heat has dropped off to very pleasant temperatures in the mid 20s.

posted from Bloggeroid

Hanoi

The exam's been and gone - only got to wait til February for the result!

After a lovely lunch, it was off to the airport to board a flight to Hanoi. It's only an hour and a half's flight, so it's an ideal long weekend break. Lovely old French colonial buildings abound and the Old Quarter is full of motorbikes buzzing around. In fact, the good people of Hanoi seem capable of living their lives on vespa-style motorbikes: a family of four seems to fit snuggly and eating and sleeping are easily accommodated on any journey.

The food is wonderful, plentiful and cheap. We went to one lovely restaurant in particular which took us on a 12 course spice journey for about 25 dollars each.

The museums were genius with their unmitigated bias. Undoubtedly, the French did not cover themselves in glory, but even the introduction of a legal system by the French was frowned upon. The history museum demonstrated the advance of spectacular progress up to 1945, it appears that the Vietnamese didn't suffer a single reverse in the whole period covered because they fought so heroically against the French in particular. The revolution museum covered everything since 1945, which was an equally successful period you'll be pleased to hear. I didn't see an explanation for all the Vietnamese faces in the pictures of French officers and prison guards - that doesn't quite fit the narrative.

posted from Bloggeroid

Right, where was I?

Ah yes, Sun Yat Sen the opera. We spent the following weekend up at a conference at the centre where tter church does its drug rehab work. Very impressive set up with since great sports facilities including a climbing wall, a swimming pool and all weather pitch. The conference itself was very interesting despite a bit of initial scepticism and cynicism! The speaker was a psychologist who was talking about how experiences in childhood can continue to affect our behaviour today - going back as far as conception! A few real life stories suggested it wasn't as pie in the sky as it first sounded.

Anyway, lots of other bits and bobs have been going on, including catching up with a mate I used to play footy with at uni but hadn't seen for about 10 years. We also took in our first real Cantonese film (our first attempt turned out to be a Mandarin film dubbed into Cantonese): Life without Principle. Worth a watch.

I'm now on study leave - exam on Thursday and then we're heading straight off to Hanoi for a long weekend.

posted from Bloggeroid

3 full weeks

Three full weeks since I last wrote something, so it's high time.  Starting with the things freshest in my memory: I had my first go at wake boarding yesterday.  It was nigh on impossible to get going (i.e. to get the boat to drag you out of the water) and everything hurts today, but it was great!  The weather is really nice now - down to mid to late 20s and lower humidity.  The water temperature is also down to about the same level, so it's a bit more refreshing that it was.  With the winter closing in (!), the open air swimming pool across the way is only open during the morning in November and is then closed until April.

A couple of weeks back I had my first work trip to the Mainland - Shanghai and Beijing in quick succession.  It's funny to think that they both feel like quite well trodden territory now and it was great to meet Terence and Nikki for a drink at a Peruvian place in Shanghai.  Beijing was more polluted than I'd seen it before.  It's reputedly the worst its been since the Olympics (when they created rain to clear things up a bit).  It was really easy to spot: just looking at the hotel window you could see it clearly with the sun trying as hard as it could to get through - and largely failing.

I got back from Shanghai just in time to go to Sun Yat Sen the opera - the man who holds the distinguished position of being regarded as the father of both Taiwan and Mainland China - work that one out!  It was the first Western-style opera written in Hong Kong and the first ever Western-style opera with Chinese instruments.  For good measure, it was also banned by the Mainland - apparently talk of revolution and democracy doesn't go down so well up there.

Ah, Matt's calling on skype...

The world's cheapest one Michelin star restaurant?

We went for lunch today at a dim sum place up in Mong Kok.  It's got a Michelin star and is very popular - big queues ensue (although if you wait long enough other people give up and you get bumped up the list!).  The bill came in at a whopping HKD88 - about GBP7.50 - for both of us.

Compulsory retirement age

Was reading about the abolition of the compulsory retirement age and some comments from the Federation of Small Businesses prompted me (via Eve's email address!) to send the chap who made them some comments :

Dear Mr Cave

I read with interest the comments that you gave to the BBC in relation to the introduction of a default retirement age.  In particular, the BBC said that the FSB considered the legislation "unnecessary meddling" and 

"It will lead to a legal quagmire for a lot of small business owners. If you can't get rid of someone, you then have to go through the process of performance managing someone out of an organisation, which if you have a big HR department and you're experienced in these things is easy," said Andrew Cave from the federation.

"The average business in this country employs four people. The owner-manager doesn't necessarily have that expertise."

If I have correctly understood these comments, I must say that I was surprised by them as I had thought the FSB would seek to promote best practice amongst its members rather than endorse the "managing out" approach of larger businesses - particularly because small businesses are of such a size where the relationships can be more personal.  It appeared to me that your position was that small businesses should be permitted "to get rid of someone" on the basis of their age alone, because otherwise it would not be possible to terminate their employment because a small business would not have a sophisticated HR function which could handle these issues and find other ways of letting someone go or follow the correct procedure.  

I do find the suggestion concerning that simply reaching a particular age should be reason enough to let someone go - regardless of any assessment of merit.  The counter point is no doubt that the business would do what it could to keep hold of someone if they were of sufficient quality, but there are various reasons why this is not always the case.

I wondered whether a better approach might be to encourage employers to take a more active interest in the careers of their employees rather than treat them like resources which can be "got rid of".  In practice, performance management is overlooked at a number of businesses - big and small.  However, it is often said that employees feel most engaged when their performance is being closely monitored and being held accountable for outcomes.  I anticipate that your response would be to say that small business owners do not have the time to focus on such issues (although your quote suggested that it was more a lack of expertise which could be easily remedied by a training course - which your organisation could no doubt run for its members).  However, I do wonder whether they would be better off seeing it as time invested in the business.


My husband's grandfather ran a successful small business for a number of years - generally with four or five employees.  If someone's performance did not reach the required standard, steps were taken and the employee in question left the business.  They did not wait until they turned 65 to avoid a difficult conversation and a fair procedure.  I wonder whether this is perhaps more the approach that the FSB might consider adopting?

Kind regards

The highest bar in the world

After work today we popped up to the bar at the top of the ICC building. It's on the 118th floor and claims to be the highest bar in the world. The decor is odd, but the view is great - you can even see our flat from up there. Something to add to the list of things to do with visitors (except those who suffer from vertigo).

posted from Bloggeroid

T8

We had our first T8 typhoon signal this week. The typhoon itself was some distance from Hong Kong, but they take no chances here - the whole place was on shut down. We first realised that something was up when the harbour was bereft of the usual hoard of ferries and they was barely a car on the road (I've put a couple of photos on facebook) - then an email came round saying the office was shut.

The typhoon had the good grace to hang around just long enough for the office to be closed all day and then disappear in time for us to go out for dinner.

posted from Bloggeroid

Kulcha

We've had our first real forays into the Hong Kong cultural scene the last couple of days: a piano recital last night and some theatre tonight. A lot of Liszt and an unusual, but thought provoking one man piece on the Hong Kong plague of 1894. It reminded me that pure descriptive words only ever tell you so much (but are very handy for accuracy). There's a whole array of other media which can communicate in a very different way and stimulate thought and debate. I think the writer-performer tonight was trying to deliver at anti-religious message, but I came away with quite different thoughts. I've been thinking about how I can explain the details of this, but eventually realised the limitations of descriptive words.

posted from Bloggeroid

New photos

Some photos of our holiday are going up as I write at flickr.com/trickymouse1

Due to popular demand, there are a couple of photos of the flat too

Tioman

Having had two months since our last holiday, we felt it was high time for another one so we headed off to Pulau Tioman in Malaysia. It's a lovely island off the east coast of Malaysia. The coral is fabulous, close to the surface and the visibility is excellent - you don't really need to scuba dive to the see great stuff under the sea here - a snorkle mask will do you just fine.

The wildlife above ground is great too: lizards of all sizes, fireflies, giant squirrels (it does what it says on the tin: the tails alone are about two foot long), all kinds of butterflies and birds and wild monkeys (although Eve was disappointed to be looking the wrong way when they appeared).

The piece de resistance is the fact that there is a jetty next to the airport and you get off the plane (which had a cassette player!), hop on a boat and it takes you to the beach where you are staying. We've got a beach hut looking straight on to the sea.

posted from Bloggeroid

Baptisms

The church had baptisms last week at Shek O beach on the south side of Hong Kong Island. It was a scorching 37 degrees and the humidity was well into the 90s again. The waves were pretty ferocious, which meant full immersion was guaranteed if you just stayed in the same spot for about 30 seconds.

posted from Bloggeroid

Dinner

With the flat up together, we've started having people around to enjoy Eve's culinary genius and the views from the terrace. So far we've had a German, a Taiwanese, a Scot, a Canadian-Hong Konger and two Hong Kongers round. Given that we have no oven, Eve has been expanding her repertoire and has developed a particularly yummy line in tapas.

The German guy is helping to build the extension to one of the tube lines. He told us that the tube in HK makes a profit - pretty impressive given that a single ticket from the flat to the office costs about 30p. Apparently, the Airport Express - which is a good deal more expensive (but much cheaper than the Heathrow equivalent) - is the only one which loses money. So it now makes sense that there are posters everywhere advertising it.

posted from Bloggeroid

What's today?

Today is safety day. Why? Because every day is safety day on the MTR (the HK tube).

Oh, it's also no plastic bags day. Because every day is no plastic bags day at the Three Sixty shop.

Everyone at Three Sixty is also a friend of food (according to their name badges at least).

posted from Bloggeroid

The flat

We're loving our flat. We had to get some guys with a very large drill to come in last week to put some pictures up - the one I borrowed from a guy at church wasn't quite up to the task of making holes in concrete. It's amazing the difference a few pictures make - the empty box feel was quickly transformed into something much more homely.

It's got a cracking view - photos should be on flickr later today! It's great that it's so open in both directions which avoids that claustrophobic feel that some flats here have. Having two floors also makes the place seem very spacious - not the kind of pokey place we'd expected! The terrace is a little elicit, but no-one seems to mind us using it.

posted from Bloggeroid

Eve's birthday

A couple of weeks back we enjoyed a few days which were all about Eve's birthday - which wonderfully coincided with a visit from friends from London. After an evening exploring the night markets of Kowloon, we took the firm's "junk"out the next night. The description could give you the impression of something a bit run down - not a bit of it! It's a cracking vessel from which we got great views of the harbour and had a wonderful trip down to Lamma Island for some great seafood. The following evening took us to our local Michelin-starred restaurant and an outdoor rooftop bar. Greg and Ruth left for Beijing on the Friday and we headed to Lantau Island for the weekend - cable cars, beaches and even better seafood abounded. It felt seriously hot - 35 degrees and humidity in the 90s and the water didn't really aid the cooling down process with surface temperature at around 29 degrees!

posted from Bloggeroid

Typhoons

We had our first typhoon (which may come from the Chinese word for Great Wind which is pronounced almost exactly the same) warning last week.  A T1 signal means a typhoon is within 800km of Hong Kong, T3 means within 400km and T9 basically means a direct hit.  We had a T3 last week which manifested itself in conditions I would describe as "fairly breezy".  Anyway, it passed off without incident - T9 apparently means a day off work.  The guy in library in the office said there is a Chinese saying that if a typhoon misses you're in for 3 days of rain - thankfully, that particular saying wasn't fulfilled last weekend - sunshine all the way.

You get the feeling that Hong Kong wasn't quite designed to be inhabited.  The actual space you can build on on the island is tiny (which is no doubt why they've been reclaiming land at a fair lick), typhoons blow through and its hot and humid so everywhere is heavily air conditioned.  Basically, very clever things are done to make it safe and inhabitable and I'm glad they did - it's great here!

Flat and trips

It's hard to believe that we've only been in town for 3 weeks - it feels like we've been here for ages. 

We've looked at countless flats, been gazumped on one and now signed up for one.  We have the keys and most of our stuff should be delivered tomorrow.  It contains the odd curiosity - high on the list is the fact that there are three showers and two bathrooms.  The flat is split over two floors and an advertising hoarding covers one side of the top floor - a feature!  There's also no oven, but almost nowhere we've seen has one - Chinese cooking doesn't often require it. 

We've had a couple of nice little trips.  We popped up to the New Territories a week after we'd arrived and visited a lovely little island called Chap Muen Chau - although I'm not entirely sure how the wild herd of cows got there.  Last weekend we took a trip to Macau - Vegas on Sea which is about an hour by ferry.  A mate from A&O comes from Macau and was visiting his folks and laid on a fun-filled 24 hours.  From Super Class on the ferry (I think Macau would regard calling it Business Class as too understated) to a cracking hotel room (in the Grand Lisboa: http://www.grandlisboa.com/en/home/index.html) which was bigger than most of the flats we had seen.  The TV set in the toilet room wall was a highlight.  Gambling is what Macau is famous for - gambling tourism makes up about 50% of the economy.  Gaming revenue is apparently about USD20bn a year - which makes Vegas and its USD10bn look like a seaside amusement town.  I actually thought the non-Casino bits of Macau were really nice - some nice old Portuguese Colonial bits.  We were told the Portuguese are not that fondly remembered because they let things slide a little towards the end and people were being shot in the street in gangland warfare - they also didn't involve the locals that heavily in government. 

Photos

Check out http://www.flickr.com/trickymouse1 for some new photos

Week one

We've been here almost a week and I think I should jot some things down before they become less memorable or novel.

- ever since SARS they seem to have got very excited here about contagious diseases.  Almost every lift we have been into reassures us that the buttons are sanitised every two hours - phew.

- if you come over to visit, cocktails on the 34th floor of The Excelsior are a must.

- summer is a mix of heat, humidity and heavy rain - although we've not had too much of the latter.  In fact, every time I've taken out the umbrella we haven't seen a drop.  The day I didn't take it out of course it rained very heavily.  I'm looking forward to what is officially described as "black rain".

- apartment sizes are nowhere near what they seem.  Having read the square footage before looking at some flats, we were surprised just how small some of them are.  It turns that the square footage includes (for example) a bit of the common parts (e.g. a section of the landing, swimming pool etc) and the bit outside the flat where the air conditioner is sitting!

- gazumping is a phenomenon in the rental market here.  We found a great place earlier on today and the landlord pulled out just as we were handing over the cash deposit!

- some of the flats we have looked at have a maid's room - most of which are literally no bigger than a single bed (which pulls down from the wall) - looked hugely inadequate to me.

- we met a lovely Swiss couple at church on Sunday who invited us around for dinner - when he first arrived in HK he couldn't speak a word of English or Cantonese.  Very brave - he can now translate quite happily between the two.

- we met the nicest immigration officer ever this morning as we went to get our ID cards - we had a lovely chat.  All very welcoming.

- Eve has us on a diet of 20 Chinese characters a day.  If we can keep it up for about 150 days, we may even be able to read a newspaper.

We've arrived in Hong Kong! Well, actually we arrived on Friday morning, but I've only now been able to upload the blogs.

Post-Mongolia we had some very nice days relaxing in Beijing and catching up with friends in Shanghai.

We're now in full flat hunting mode...

posted from Bloggeroid

Nadaam

Nadaam, the so-called Nomad Olympics, takes place in mid July in Mongolia. The three main pursuits are wrestling, horse racing (25km) and archery. We thought we would miss it as it tends to take place around the country on 11 and 12 July. Lucky for us the Nadaam in a town close to where we were staying was happening early and we saw some of the action. The usually reserved Mongolians came to life as the horse racing reached its conclusion - after 25km two boys came in neck and a neck and it was literally won by a nose.

The wrestling is a highly tactical affair and bouts can go on for half an hour - although, given that there are no weight categories, some bouts can be over very quickly. The participants wear open chested outfits - apparently because a woman won a few centuries back and this outfit is a sure way of flushing them out of a men-only sport. Our driver was hooked on the action - not surprising as a former regional champion himself.

posted from Bloggeroid

Spa

With the roads getting increasingly more challenging (that may actually be a misuse of the word "road" - bridleway might be a bit closer), we headed off on a trek in the mountains. It was unseasonably cold - there was fresh snow on the ground as we got higher. There were great views over the surrounding (again, completely unspoilt and uninhabited) tree covered countryside.

We slept in a ger by some springs and had steaming hot baths which were a nice contrast to the cold weather. It was odd having a rustic spa experience (bath tub in a shed) in the middle of nowhere - but very welcome!

posted from Bloggeroid

Kharkhorun

Having had a lovely night's sleep, we headed for Kharkhorun - a Buddhist monastery built on the ruins of the capital built by Chinggis Khan's son. The communists laid waste to a lot of it, but what remains is an interesting insight into past and present life and culture (Buddhism has made a comeback since the early 90s). The Buddhist equivalent of a service goes on for four hours and a full meal is served to the chanting monks.

Kharkhorun delivered our first sampling of proper local food - something akin to a fried meat pasty - although who knows what the meat was. Tasted good though.

From there we headed to a waterfall - rain and cold kyboshed the thought of camping and we headed for another ger. Our driver took up cooking duties, which initially involved collecting some smooth stones and putting them in the wood burning stove. Once they were white hot, they went in a stock pot with some water (it looked like a big metal thermos flask) and they were joined by some veg and a very fresh rack of lamb. Wait for half an hour - delicious.

posted from Bloggeroid

Heading west

After the odd hiccup (completely my fault) finding the hotel we had booked for a brief post-train snooze, we were picked up and headed to Chinghis Khan International Airport (his name is on everything in Mongolia) to pick up Victoria. From there we headed west with our 4x4 (complete with driver and guide). It wasn't long after leaving UB that you got a sense of how sparsely populated Mongolia is (the world's most sparsely populated country we're told) - vast swathes of beautiful, uninhabited (or only sporadically inhabited) countryside.

We slept the first night at a ger (essentially a good-sized wood framed tent clad with sheep's wool - which keeps it warm and dry). There was one family in particular the driver wanted us to stay with, but what with them being nomadic, he had to ask around to find out where they were this season. The occupants of other local gers gladly pointed us in the right direction. After striping in, we wandered along the sand dunes whilst Tina (our guide) cooked up dinner. As the sun was heading for the horizon, Victoria and I had a bit of a ride on our host's camels. Mine was a little feisty and had a bloody noise - which he delightfully wiped on my trousers.

posted from Bloggeroid

The long train to Ulaanbaatar

We shared our cabin to Mongolia with two older ladies from Brighton. Having not met a single non-Russian on our trains over the previous four weeks, we felt like we'd stepped onto the tourist express (admittedly, a very slow moving express - the 260km to the border took about five hours). We saw more non-Russians on that train than we had done since leaving Moscow. Apart from the time it took, the border crossing was happily uneventful for us (an American chap had more difficulty after apparently having some pages ripped out of his passport at immigration).

Thinking we had 12 minutes at the Mongolian side of the border, we rushed around like mad men to get some food - only to return to the train just in time and find out that Mongolia is an hour behind Russia, so we could sit down in a cafe and enjoy some local fast food (of the stir fry variety - the menu was incomprehensible to us, so we relied on the lovely waitress to just pick two dishes) and a beer before heading off to Ulaanbaatar (UB to its friends). We caught sight of or first gers within a few minutes of setting off - outside of UB, almost the whole population is nomadic, moving every 3 or 4 months. Although they don't have running water, modernity has not passed them by: solar panels and satellite dishes abound.

We were woken by an over enthusiastic carriage attendant about an hour and a half before our 6am arrival, but at least we got to see some nice scenery before we got to UB and its communist architectural charms (with a few modern glass high rises in evidence). UB means Red Hero in Mongolian - not the original name you'll understand - it got that name when the Russians helped "liberate" it from the Chinese. They liked the country so much, they set up a puppet government. UB's had a few names over the years, the first simply meaning Camp.

posted from Bloggeroid

Ulan Ude

From Irkutsk we took a lovely long train journey along the shore of Lake Baikal up to Ulan Ude. The weather was stunning and the views of the Lake were awesome. Had we not needed to get to Mongolia, we would have been tempted to jump off and look around for a couple of days. It looks like the hills would serve up some lovely hiking.

Ulan Ude itself is pleasant without loads to see and do - the world's biggest Lenin head is its main claim to fame - it is absolutely enormous. After our last hearty Russian meal and having stocked up for our early train to Mongolia the next day, we headed to bed.

posted from Bloggeroid

Ulan Ude

From Irkutsk we took a lovely long train journey along the shore of Lake Baikal up to Ulan Ude. The weather was stunning and the views of the Lake were awesome. Had we not needed to get to Mongolia, we would have been tempted to jump off and look around for a couple of days. It looks like the hills would serve up some lovely hiking.

Ulan Ude itself is pleasant without loads to see and do - the world's biggest Lenin head is its main claim to fame - it is absolutely enormous. After our last hearty Russian meal and having stocked up for our early train to Mongolia the next day, we headed to bed.

posted from Bloggeroid

Musings

Come tomorrow we'll be on our way out of Russia, so I must jot down some things while they occur to me.

Fashion is perplexing here. Women tend to be very well dressed (Eve fits in famously). They also wear stilettos for any occasion - including just wandering around town. On the other hand, men's fashion is limited to three things: camo gear, jeans and adidas. In fact, it seems obligatory to wear at least one item of adidas at any given moment. If you can wear a full adidas tracksuit, that's the pinnacle.

May be life is literally too short for most blokes to think more about fashion. Life expectancy for a Russian male hovers around 60 (women get about 15 more years on average). The thinking seems to be that alcohol, smoking and a poor diet really don't help (being drunk also causes accidents). Fags cost about 50p a packet and it's been more common in our experience to see people drink beer on the street than anything soft (even women can be seen drinking a bottle of beer mid afternoon). On our bus back from the island yesterday, two guys in their late teens got through two big cans of 7% "alcohol and energy" drink each in about an hour between half eleven and half twelve - they also got the bus to stop for a fag break.

Finding English words adopted by other languages is not unusual, but I haven't seen it adopted and transliterated before. Business is a favourite in particular - such as the бизнес ланч - business lunch.

posted from Bloggeroid

Racism

Writing about racism is hard because it is present everywhere to some degree and commenting on it can give the impression that it is not a problem for you or your homeland. It can also (ironically) involve making generalisations about the attitude of one group to another. However, with that in mind...

The lovely thing as we have moved further east is the apparent greater level of racial and ethnic integration - we've seen mixed race couples. We were told in Moscow that certain foreigners might get extra attention from the police there, but that we'd be fine (the undertone being that because we are white we'll slip under the radar). They were right - we've not had any interaction with the police at all, but we have seen people who look like they might hail from the Southern and Eastern parts of the old USSR being asked for their papers. We've probably seen half a dozen people in total who would be described in the UK as black. Although, my friend in Moscow told me that in Russia the people described (pejoratively) as black are the Armenians (his wife is Armenian, but he said she doesn't look that Armenian so doesn't have problems). The Russian word for people who would be described in the UK as black still begins with an "n" I'm told. Whilst we've been here there has been a news story about a Brazilian footballer having bananas thrown at him.

We've all got a long way to go before we afford each unique valuable human being the full dignity, respect and love they are due. Having read a Wilberforce biography last year and a Bonhoeffer biography on this journey, it's tragic to see how aspects of the church have on occasion managed to move from God's loving view of all humans and drop into line with those who have sought denegrate certain people groups.

posted from Bloggeroid

Baikal

The real reason to travel to Irkutsk was not to see that city, but to make the 250 and odd kilometre trip up to Olkhon Island in the middle of Lake Baikal. The stats about Baikal are mind boggling: one-fifth of the world's fresh water and it's bigger than all five of the US Great Lakes combined. The reason it's not better known may have something to do with the fact that it's some 5,000 kilometres (or four nights) from Moscow by train. They've also not made it that easy to get to: the first 150km from Irkutsk are decently tarmac-ed, but after that it starts to get bumpy as it becomes a pot holed mud road. In fact, the road is so bad that an impromptu secondary mud road has grown up alongside the "real" road and most people seem to prefer the new one.

Our six hour journey was delayed - turning into an eleven hour journey. We met some nice people while we were waiting (and a slightly quirky German "traveller" from the school of "let's just talk about me and my experiences") - a couple of Norwegian students and a French couple who had hitch hiked their way through a lot of Southern and Eastern Europe and Turkey, before getting a boat over the Black Sea to Russia.

Anyway, the journey was definitely worth it when we made it to the island - wonderfully undeveloped (although I always think it a little strange when there's electricity, mobile phone reception, satellite TV and plasma TVs, but no running water and flush toilets) and beautiful open spaces. We did a lovely hike up the coast and the weather was great too. We stayed at Olga's and she delivered some fine food in generous quantities (I should mention that the spaghetti with cheese for breakfast on our second day was a little odd - more than made up for by the lovely cake which was also on offer).

posted from Bloggeroid

Baikal

The real reason to travel to Irkutsk was not to see that city, but to make the 250 and odd kilometre trip up to Olkhon Island in the middle of Lake Baikal. The stats about Baikal are mind boggling: one-fifth of the world's fresh water and it's bigger than all five of the US Great Lakes combined. The reason it's not better known may have something to do with the fact that it's some 5,000 kilometres (or four nights) from Moscow by train. They've also not made it that easy to get to: the first 150km from Irkutsk are decently tarmac-ed, but after that it starts to get bumpy as it becomes a pot holed mud road. In fact, the road is so bad that an impromptu secondary mud road has grown up alongside the "real" road and most people seem to prefer the new one.

Our six hour journey was delayed - turning into an eleven hour journey. We met some nice people while we were waiting (and a slightly quirky German "traveller" from the school of "let's just talk about me and my experiences") - a couple of Norwegian students and a French couple who had hitch hiked their way through a lot of Southern and Eastern Europe and Turkey, before getting a boat over the Black Sea to Russia.

Anyway, the journey was definitely worth it when we made it to the island - wonderfully undeveloped (although I always think it a little strange when there's electricity, mobile phone reception, satellite TV and plasma TVs, but no running water and flush toilets) and beautiful open spaces. We did a lovely hike up the coast and the weather was great too. We stayed at Olga's and she delivered some fine food in generous quantities (I should mention that the spaghetti with cheese for breakfast on our second day was a little odd - more than made up for by the lovely cake which was also on offer).

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Religious art

We've seen a fair among of religious art on our travels so far. It's quite striking how it's very difficult to remember a single painting with someone smiling or expressing joy some other way. We've seen some great stuff, including a couple of brilliant Rembrandts in St Petersburg. However, they do seem to concentrate on the solemn and striking rather than joy. I wonder whether it's churches which emphasise the solemnity more than the joy influencing painters/suggesting what's appropriate or whether painters decide that this is the style of painting they wish to adopt (may be that style makes for the best paintings?).

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The double overnighter

We're now on board the train to Irkutsk for our mammoth double overnight trip. Given the length of the trip, we took no chances and made sure we had a little cabin to ourselves in second class.

We've made it through all 7 episodes of the Long Way Round (thanks to Victoria for giving it to us and dad for getting it into a format we could view on the tab). A very entertaining watch - particularly because a lot of it focuses on the time they spent in Russia and Kazakhstan. We did chuckle at the end where Ewan McGregor says he hopes the message of their journey is to show people that anything is possible. Although motorcycling from London to New York is a hugely impressive feat, it's pretty clear that it was made possible to a certain extent because they got given loads of free kit and had two support vehicles which (whilst not travelling with them) were never too far away. It has inspired Eve though to see if we can find a four wheel drive camper van for future journeys. Anyway, fear not, we've got one or two other programmes to keep us entertained for the upcoming journeys.

The scenery has been lovely today - rolling hills and pretty colourful flowers - as well as the increasingly familiar sight of Siberian wooden cabins.

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Tobolsk

From Tyumen, it was a 3rd class overnight train to Tobolsk. Given that the evening before hadn't delivered the finest carriage in the Russian train fleet, we wondered what awaited us. We needn't have been concerned - it was great. A lovely modern train - softer seats and pleasantly air conditioned.

Tobolsk itself is a pleasant town and Hotel Sputnik provided a good sized room with the world's biggest bath in the en suite. It's unclear whether it's just the Lonely Plant which calls the town the Oxford of Siberia - but two nice university buildings does not an Oxford make. It's finest asset is the lovely old wooden houses and the jazz club was great too. Sadly, we just missed out on seeing the local football team because our train to Irkutsk beckoned.

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Addenda

Forgot to mention that the lady in the only shop on Svet Island used an abacus to total up our purchases. On it's own, this may seem quaint, but perhaps not totally incongruous. However, the abacus use should be seen in the light of the fact that when we asked to buy a bottle water she opened the bottle fridge with a remote control.

Also forgot to talk about our top museum trip in Tobolsk. The guide book spoke about the eerie former holding prison for Tsarist exiles. We dutifully followed the signs and ended up in a cloakroom and were told we were in the museum. Having deposited our bags, we proceeded up the stairs to the museum proper. It turned out that it was indeed a museum, but it had nothing to do with a prison. It apparently had something to do with a (fairly poorly stocked) town library - given that it was all in Russian, that was our best guess. Numerous people came up to us and gave us (what we can only assume were) interesting facts about what we were looking at, but sadly it was all lost on us - we left as soon as felt polite!

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Tyumen

A slightly lower grade third class cabin took us to Tyumen for the night and back on to the main Trans-Siberian route. A slightly odd hotel awaited us. On arrival, a lady was called down to meet us. James Bond-style she descended via a glass lift and brought her crib sheet with her which started with: Hello, nice to meet you. However, she skipped that bit and jumped straight to: "passport".

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Tobolsk

Tobolsk is a lovely little town - it used to be Siberia's capital, but gradually lost its importance when it was bypassed by the main Trans-Siberian route. The Kremlin there is in great nick and the old town down the hill is charmingly dilapidated with stacks of lovely wooden houses. It gave you an insight into how the peasants would once have looked up to the lord of the manor types in their fancy place up on the hill.

The town isn't really set up for visitors though - we saw one hotel (the one we were staying in) and one cafe (where we ate very well twice) in our two days there. We were greeted with broad smiles on our second visit to the cafe - I assumed that we'd created such a good impression first time. The waitress came over and asked for our dictionary and disappeared for 5 mins. She returned with a slip of paper saying we'd been under-charged the day before by 250 rubles (we had thought it a little cheap). No wonder she was delighted to see us - there's every chance it could have come out of her wages.

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Leaving Yekaterinburg

We were pleasantly surprised to board a very modern train that evening to Tobolsk - easily the nicest sleeper I've ever been on. We had been losing faith in the low train number theory espoused by The Lonely Planet, but it really worked this time. We got a second class cabin to ourselves and slept very soundly. The bed was soft and all we could hear and feel was the gentle rocking of the train.

The Lonely Planet with its usual flourish promised a "fine and picturesque market" on the platform when we arrived in Tobolsk. It looked like a row of shops to me.

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Yekaterinburg

After the island trip, we jumped on the night train to Yekaterinburg - Boris Yeltsin's old stomping ground before he was promoted to Moscow. More importantly for a lot of Russians, it's where the last czar and his family were murdered (apparently the excuse was that someone was planning to break them out of their house arrest and killing them would very effectively prevent this). They've built a church on the spot of the murder and the czar and his family are venerated by the orthodox church - not, it seems, because he was a particularly good chap - he seems to be regarded as responsible for millions of deaths by various means. All adding to the impression that there is a considerable blurring between church and state.

We ate Japanese that evening at a microbrewery drinking wheat beer - there's as cultural mix for you. The Russians do seem to love their Japanese food. There are Japanese restaurants everywhere.

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Sviyazhsk

After a pleasant day wandering around Kazan, we head off the next day on a two hour boat trip down the Volga to Sviyazhsk island. It used to be bigger than it was, but it became smaller when they needed a reservoir for a new power station. Anyway, it's a lovely spot with a couple of very old monasteries. The slight downside was that it was a bit of building site. There's been loads of work going on in a lot of places we've been, but this was a new level! Not only are the buildings being spruced up, the streets are all being relaid - with mod cons like street lights. It had a lot of character, but in five years I think it'll look even better.

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Kazan

After lovely quiet catch up sleep, we went for an explore around Kazan. Of all the cities we've so far in Russia, it seems to be the one most touched by modernity - various new buildings around. However, it also has a world heritage-listed Kremlin, which contains not only an orthodox cathedral, but also an enormous mosque - which gives you an indication that we are making our way further east. We're almost in line with Tehran and tonight's train journey will take us over the Europe-Asia "border". The ethnic mix is also starting to change a little.

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Maxim Gorki

Nizhny Novgorod's most famous son is the playwright, Maxim Gorki. We popped into his house today. Not exactly welcoming: the door was unlocked (but not open) when we arrived, but on a chain. Once we'd been granted access, there were at least four people working there, but it wasn't clear what they all did. One lady's job seemed to be to follow us around and turn the lights on and off. Another sold us the tickets (once she'd opened up the ticket office) - although, given that we were the only visitors, you'd struggle to call it a full-time job. Interesting museum though.

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A new twist on Al Capone

My mate in Moscow was telling me what happens if you refuse to play along with the corrupt and experience some modicum of success. The economic crime unit mysteriously finds some financial irregularities and you're packed off to prison. Struck me that this was a bit like Al Capone - with a twist. They couldn't get him for his most heinous crimes, but they managed to get him for massive tax evasion. These guys in Russia are honest types who've committed no crimes, but go down for tax evasion anyway.

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Nizhny Novgorod

After Vladimir, it was a short-ish hop on the train to Nizhny Novgorod (about two hours). After being slightly perturbed that the tram was taking a completely different route to the one marked in the Lonely Plant, we actually found the hotel without any great difficulty.

Nizhny (as locals apparently call it) has a lovely setting on the Volga river - before the Trans-Siberian, the major way of getting goods and people around this enormous country. It has a lovely Kremlin, which has a concert hall which is great on the outside and Soviet inside. Unable to pass up the opportunity to see the Nizhny Novgorod philharmonic orchestra at home, Eve spent a while trying to buy tickets for the evening's performance. Turns out that our money was being refused because they were in a season of free concerts - it just took us about 10 mins of passing the dictionary back and forwards to work this out!

After the concert we headed for the CCCP bar which was ironically dripping in Society memorabilia - Stalin busts, propaganda posters and the like. Life was so good back then, everyone had to be reminded just how good it was.

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Suzdal

Suzdal is about an hour by bus from Vladimir. Despite the lady in the hotel suggesting a taxi for a tenner, we decided to head down to the bus station to jump on the local bus. Matters were complicated a little because the 11am bus was cancelled, so a fair few people had to squeeze on the slightly dilapidated bus leaving at 11.30am. Luckily we'd waited by the gate, so were near the front of the queue - managed to grab a seat, which was no mean feat as the 25 seater must have pulled away with 50 people on board. We noticed on the way that this is the place where buses are recycled. A number of buses had adverts for local shops in Germany or the name of Dutch bus operating companies. The bus we were on was probably more suited to scrapping than recycling.

Suzdal itself is a town of a few thousand people and a profusion of churches and monasteries by a lovely river. The guide book with its usual flourish spoke of the town experiencing a tourism boom. I can only assume this is relative given that we must have seen about 100 tourists (including the seemingly ever present Chinese tour group) in total during our 6 hours there.

We had lunch in the Archbishop's dining hall with its fine collection of samovars (hot water dispensers). Most of the afternoon was spent at the monastery at the top of the town which appears to have doubled as a POW camp during WWII. We were treated to two renditions of discordant bell ringing. Some chap goes up the bell tower on the hour and manually operates the bells - one man band style with arms and legs flailing around.

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Vladimir

We left Moscow and headed east a little: to Vladimir only three hours away. The train had a number less than 100 (the lower the better for Russian trains) and we were on our own in a second class compartment. We even got a packed lunch with a little carton of apple juice.

Vladimir was a little drab at first sight - the fact that it was drizzling probably didn't help, but it could also do with a lick paint in places. We hopped on Trolly Bus 5 and headed up the hill to our hotel. Nice little place on the main road - opposite a pizza joint where we had dinner (seemed to be a but if a local date spot, although oddly no-one spoke to each other and just watched Russian gangster rap on mtv). It felt much more like real Russian life than St Petersburg or Moscow. It has a couple of nice-looking churches and a couple of Communist statues, but not much more. It's main attraction is that it is the nearest town on the train route to Suzdal - more to come on that.

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Graves

When we were in Jerusalem, we saw the thousands of tombs on the Mount of Olives well placed for the Messiah to walk by. In the Nikolaikirche in Berlin we saw tombs near relics which was supposed to smooth the passage into the afterlife. Communism too appears to have its favoured burial place: the Western Wall of the Kremlin was their spot. Lenin's Mausoleum is there (so dark inside I almost missed the stairs and came a cropper) and others have their graves just behind - including the mass murderer, Stalin. Odd to think that supposedly scientific humanist systems appear to have their own shrines and "holy" sites.

The fact that the Communist revolution adopted other traditions is clear from the fact that Stalin lived in the Kremlin where the Czars of old resided.

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Moscow

We warmed to Moscow. It may not have the Baroque uniformity of St Petersburg (which was basically all built at the same time about 300 years ago), but it has a fine spread of other buildings - not as blighted by communism as we had feared (the city centre at least). The buildings come in all different shapes, sizes and eras reflecting Moscow's long history.

The metro in both cities reflects a "chariot of the people" idea. Huge stations very deep underground (which could also double as bomb shelters if required) with lashings of marble and wide grand platforms. It's also ready cheap (in stark contrast to everything else in both cities) - about 50p a journey.

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Saw some Hari Krishnas in Moscow today - exactly the same song

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Moscow

After a mad dash to get the keys back to the apartment rental company, we jumped on the ultra modern train to Moscow. Four and a half or so hours later we arrived - distinctive dominating (and slightly scary) Moscovite towers with spikey peaks.

We went to a Georgian restaurant for dinner - Georgian food is to Russians what curry is to Brits. Nice meal in the world's most expensive city. I think we got an insight into its underbelly as we ate. Two very nice cars turned up in quick succession outside the restaurant - Bentley and a Rolls I think. Both were followed by a 4x4 with blacked out windows. As each nice car stopped, four guys in dark suits jumped out of the 4x4 and surrounded the nice car and opened the doors. One jumped in the driver seat and drove the nice car away, two followed the wealthy couple into the restaurant and one stood outside the restaurant. I can only assume they're really popular - what other explanation can there be?

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Marinsky

We went to see the Marriage of Figaro at The Marinsky Theatre on Friday night. An opulent setting which is completely in keeping with the city as a whole. The opera itself was in Italian with Russian surtitles - not that I think that made much difference. In my experience, you need the synopsis to hand to follow the story whatever language it is presented in. The unexpected thing was that the seats were all individual chairs - not rows of cinema-like seats - makes getting up and down the rows a bit of a challenge.

All good fun and we made it to a roof top restaurant for a midnight meal as our time in St Petersburg drew to an end.

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Before I forget

Some random things

- although there are some cars with taxi signs on the roof, every car is a potential taxi here - just stick your hand out and see who fancies stopping. No-one uses the meter anyway!

- anyone can sunbathe by lying on the ground, but if you want to sunbathe properly standing up is the way to go here. At the Peter and Paul Fortress yesterday (more church and state separation issues), there were loads of people standing dramatically to maximise their exposure to the sun. They only get 75 days of sun here, so they have to make the most of it I guess (we've had four sunny days in a row).

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Photos

The Russians put the Chinese to shame when it comes to posing for photos. The Chinese make an effort, whereas the Russians go the whole hog. Almost every woman seems to be taking part in a photo shoot and thus adopts suitably alluring poses - quarter turn back to the camera and the like. Blokes, on the other hand, seem to go for more sultry looks - strong and silent types.

St Petersburg

A grander city you couldn't hope to see - fine buildings as far as the eye can see. From our wanderings and boat trips, we've only spotted about four buildings in the whole of the inner city which look out of place - presumably post WWII additions (from the train the suburbs looked jammed full of more typical communist residential architecture). The scale really is breathtaking.

It appears that the separation between church and state may not have been such a big deal in days gone by up here. Churches seem to commemorate czars as much as any religious figures and some of the architecture comes over as more imperial than spiritual. This may have something to do with how Russia decided to adopt the Orthodox branch of Christianity. I'm told the czar sent out a band of men to check out the world's religions and recommend one for Russia. The Orthodox form was adopted because of the beauty of the buildings and tangible presence of God. However, it seems to have become very much a state religion.

St Petersburg

St Petersburg is currently the city that never appears to get dark. It's as light at 11 pm as it is at 5pm - thankfully Eve brought along some face masks from a long haul flight last year - Leanne is having to make do with wrapping her face in a towel! It is a little a bit wierd that it's so light, but handy because you never have to walk home in the dark. I wonder if crime falls dramatically during the White Nights?

Belarus

Although we only spent a day trundling through on a train, the story we were told about Belarus seems to ring true: a proper Soviet throwback spot. Minsk looked to have a couple of modern buildings, but that seemed to be pretty much it for the whole country. We had a couple of hours' stopover in a town called Orsha. And the train did literally just stop - not at a platform, but just near the station so we had to clamber down a makeshift ladder and over some railway lines to habe a wander.

To say there was very little there would be overstating the point (although the train station was a fine piece of imposing architecture), but Eve did do very well to buy us two bottles of water with her visa card. Odd that the train should stop there given that it only had about 7 stops in total - including Berlin and St Petersburg, but there you are.

We stayed up for a little bit hoping to reach the Russian border so we wouldn't be woken for it - we needn't have bothered: Russia and Belarus get on so well that once you're in Belarus there are no visa controls until you leave Russia. Good job we went to sleep when we did.

Gauges

After the air conditioning got going, we settled in for a very pleasant evening gliding through the Eastern German and Polish countryside. Although we shared no tongue in common with the conductor (save for some helpful vocab which Eve remembered from school days), he was really helpful and friendly.

The one thing out of his control was the timing of border crossings. We trundled out of Poland at about 2am (I thought it was the Belarussian border, so brandished my visa to some confused looking border guards). That visa however did come in handy when we encountered the Belarus border about 10 mins later. It has to be up there on the expensive visa scale. 50 quid for a two day transit visa. All went swimmingly (the customs guys gave up when they found out we don't really speak any Russian). Major works on the train followed. The old Soviet states have a slightly wider gauge on their train lines, so our train had to be duly adapted. That all sorted, it was time to head into Belarus

The off

After four great days in Berlin (including a lovely birthday), it was time for Eve's parents to return home and us to start our trip up to Russia. The train to the airport and the one to Saint Petersburg left from adjacent platforms so we could see Stephen and Kathryn onto their train and then jump on ours (delayed by about 25 mins, but we were pretty confident they'd be able to make up the time over the following 36 hours).

Getting the right carriage was fairly important given that only one of them was actually going to St Petersburg - the others were on their way to Moscow and Kiev I think. It wasn't exactly the height of modernity, but we had a bunk each in our little (Eve calls it cute) first class compartment - as well as a little chair and a sink. The chair cunningly hid a cool box under the seat.

Berlin

Great to be back in Berlin - the pace of change seems to have slowed down enough that the place seems as familiar as it ever did. The main changes seem to be that the old East German meeting hall has gone (and all its asbestos with it) and the Reichstag is much more difficult to get into. The former has apparently been removed in the name of rebuilding an old palace (Potsdam has taken this idea to the max). The latter is the victim of heightened security - never quite sure how significant the threat is.

Liege

Passed through Liege train station on the way to Berlin - could be the best station I've seen. Hugely impressive, but I'm not sure why something so grand and modern was warranted

Forgot to mention that not long after arriving in Paris we found ourselves at Notre Dame with the sound of an accordion in the background and the sight of a loved up couple in their 50s inappropriately fondling each other on the banks of the Seine - ah, Paris

Roland Garros

The flanerie complete (although can it ever be truly complete?), we headed off to Roland Garros on Tuesday. Murray fought through the pain to win the fifth set - although he seems to have that permanent teenage look of the whole world being against him. I hope he enjoys the fact now and again that he is ranked the 4th best player in the world.

Paris

In Paris we revived the ancient art of flanerie. In the 1800s, some young and wealthy types clearly had too much time on their hands and came up with flanerie - largely wandering with no purpose but the joy of aimless meandering. The strict rules included having no destination and no end time. You wandered in whatever direction took your fancy until you decided not to any more.

I thought we were following these principles very closely until I realised Eve had subverted the process to lead us to her favourite ice cream shop.

Onwards

After three days of packing up our lives in London, it was off to our first stop (Brussels) for Mark and Wiebke's wedding. I was on ushering duty (executed with aplomb in case you're wondering).

Brussels has often struck me as a decent place to live - huge apartments for decent rent and a gravy train so long that there's space for all. It also appears to be the place for drink driving. Someone told us about when he was pulled over for a random check. He was asked whether he'd had anything to drink that night. He replied that he'd had three beers. The police invited him to take a 30 minute break before blowing into the breathalyzer if he needed it.

My general impression of Brussels is that it is decent if not world beating (as the guide book puts it: not a city you immediately fall in love with). A helpful indication was provided by the paper someone was reading on our trip from Brussels to Paris. It had a special section on the previous day's 20km run - not a marathon, a 20km run - just less than half a marathon. Brussels - probably just about less than half a world city - but I guess you may not be looking for a world city.

Shabbat

Compete abstinence from work for 24 hours can be tricky when work is broadly defined (although that will depend on your rabbi). This has led to a few work arounds. Take the Shabbat elevator - pressing the button would be work, so the solution is a lift which stops automatically on every other floor - annoying I imagine if you live high up. The Shabbat mobile phone is also on the market - I'm told that there is a chance (very small though it may be) that your call may not connect (there is some setting which means one time in a thousand or something the call won't connect). If it may or may not connect, apparently that puts it more in the leisure than work bracket.

When quizzed a recent covert said that God may have given the 600 or mishvot, but he gave no guidance on compliance, so it can be about the letter rather than spirit of the thing.

We were told about a newly arrived diplomat who made the mistake of driving through an ultra orthodox Jewish area of Jerusalem on Shabbat. The story ends with her car literally being stoned and a rescue car having to be sent by the Embassy.

Conundrum solved

Found out why there were loads of Thai people in Neot Hakikar. Apparently, after the intifada started, the Arab workers were told to seek alternative employment elsewhere and needed to be replaced. Their replacements needed to be used to working in the fields in pretty extreme heat - the Thais fitted the description.

Even today there is difficulty for other South East Asians getting into Israel, because there's an agreement with the Thai Government.

Ah ha

We spent a couple of lovely days with friends in Tel Aviv - relaxing and hugely informative! Three years as a diplomat has apparently taught him a thing or two about the country and the political situation. I was interested to hear how the settlements may end up backfiring. Time was apparently when they were set up so they could be given back in land swaps (although some also no doubt thought that it was important to populate all the land). Now there's little hope of dismantling some settlements which are too established, so they may end up giving up bits of the land inside the '47 borders in order to keep the settlements.

I also learned that the plan would be to create a Palestinian State with the West Bank and Gaza. The slight problem being that they aren't next to each other. I'm told the solution could be to connect them with an enclosed road - novel.

Not so anonymous generosity

It feels that almost all public spaces in the bits we saw of Israel owe their current state to a named benefactor - who in turn takes the opportunity to dedicate it to (usually) a relative. It appears that loads of people want to leave their mark. We read about one audacious bid to have a national museum of some repute take the name of a donor in return for USD20m (the equivalent of The National Gallery in association with Richard Norridge) - initially accepted, but it seems that certain things are untouchable - after an outcry the name and money returned.

Kibbutzim

I had this image in my head that a Kibbutz was some kind of modern day communist ideal and I think it probably was at some stage. However, times change. The ones we saw had diversified a little - primarily into 5 star tourist resorts.

I was told that the ideal is also struggling a little due to a lack of younger people keeping the idea going. A lot of the originals are moving into retirement and the model only works if there are enough young people to keep the kibbutz going and pay for the retirees. One kibbutz with a number of pensioners fairly recently went bust - the government stepped in.

Very remiss

I've gone a bit quiet over the last couple of weeks - there's much to update you on! I think I left matters at our pilgrim hostel in The Galilee. It's a lovely area. So tranquil in fact that the Bible stories about storms on the Sea of Galilee seemed a little far fetched - until a storm suddenly blew up one night and you could see that it would be rather unpleasant to be out on the water. Our white car also got caked in mud as dirt blew in.

We visited the classic sites where significant things are said to have happened (apart from Capernaum, which is an impressive ruin, there is the usual guesswork going on). Either way, Jesus was pretty active in the region and you can see how the references to him walking from one place to another (and taking time out in the fields) all fit together.

We also popped into Tsfat (well, that's one transliteration, but there are plenty of others - Hebrew there's no standard way of writing Hebrew names in English), it's the home of Kaballah, which I'm told Madonna is very fond of. You can only imagine how much the Lonely Planet loves the home of Jewish mysticism - positively salivating. It's actually a nice town up in the hills, which has memories of the time which led to the creation of the State of Israel. There's a staircase which the British built to keep the Jews and Arabs apart. We didn't see all that many Arabs during our visit there.

Eve's culinary highlight came on the way home from Tsfat - a goats cheese farm down a dirt track which served platters containing ten homemade goats cheeses and other goodies.

Surely nothing good can come from Nazareth

On the way from the Dead Sea to Galilee we popped into Nazareth. It didn't take long to identify with the Biblical quote above. The sites are of the sort we don't enjoy so much - finding somewhere where something in the Bible may have happened and build an enormous church on it (and if there are rival places, build two churches!). The food, however, was nothing short of superb. After a yummy dinner, it was time to head to Galilee and our German pilgrim hostel (according to the Lonely Planet). Rarely could the word hostel have been so misused. It's a lovely spot and serves lovely cakes and draft beer on its terrace overlooking the Lake.

On to lighter things (there's a pun there)

Day 2 at the Dead Sea took us to the desert hills and luscious pools of Ein Gedi - a popular hang out of King David in days of yore. It was then into the sea itself - a brilliantly surreal experience which I'm told also did wonders for my skin. It's actually a bit tricky to only keep your head above water - your legs are automatically drawn to the surface.

We stayed just off the southern tip of the Dead Sea in a moshav - seemingly a slightly less communist version of a kibbutz. It sounds like on a kibbutz everything is held in common. A moshav apparently allows the successful to keep some of their profits. We were right by the Jordanian border (which may have been the reason why there were - admittedly young and relaxed looking - armed soldiers guarding the entrance to the town) - you could see the border from the terrace of our little cabin. It came as a bit of a surprise that about half the moshav seemed to hail from Thailand (Singha appeared to be the top selling beer in the supermarket). Never did get to the bottom of that.

Suicide or heroism?

Despite the foreboding title, this isn't a post about bombers. Rather it relates to Masada down by the Dead Sea. Herod built this amazing place up in the hills overlooking the Dead Sea. Terraces, stream rooms, saunas - the lot. When the Jews started to revolt against the Romans, the Romans cracked down heavily and the last remaining rebels took over Masada. Herod had stocked the place so well they had enough stuff to last them for literally years. However, the Romans weren't willing to wait that long and, after many months trying, were finally on the verge of breaching the walls. By the time they did, basically the whole populace was dead (a few people managed to escape the well organised suicide pact).

The Scrolls

They've built a cracking museum to display the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not only is the architecture clever and iconic, it's also pretty insightful. It appears that the chaps who had the Scrollswere a group who had had it with Jerusalem and the Temple. All a bit corrupt and defiled for their liking, so they went off to set up their own community which more closely modelled how they thought things should be. They were committed to the idea of the Human Sanctuary i.e. that God dwelt in people rather than the Temple - sounded similar to what another guy was saying a little later.

Moving feast

You realise how arbitrary some sites are when you hear some stories. Apparently the site of Stephen's stoning moved a few hundred years ago to a more convenient spot. Mount Zion had also moved it seems. The Temple Mount was the original Mount Zion, but the name has since attached itself to another raised bit of land just outside today's old city.

One place which doesn't seem to have moved is the City of David. A stone's throw from the old city if you've got a decent arm. The exhibition starts with what I'm sure some would find a slightly provocative video which ends with news of resettling certain areas. Anyway, the really cool bit is walking through Hezekiah's tunnel - a 3,000 or so year old construction to help bring water into the city in case of inevitable siege. About 450 metres of underground tunnel with accompanying ankle deep water - an extraordinary construction achievement.

Jerusalem - walls

Having put some thoughts in the previous posts, I thought I might mention some of the places we've actually been.

The Old City in Jerusalem must be one of the world's great cultural and religious melting pots. Four quarters are gathered within its walls - although the Armenians obviously weren't quite so up on their maths, so their quarter seems to be a fair amount smaller than the Christian, Jewish and Muslim equivalents. A walk around gave us a good impression of the place - one of the striking things is that the quarters are a bit rough and ready in terms of demarcation. Mosques, churches and synagogues can be found in each of the quarters.

We came off the wall and wandered on and stumbled upon the Wailing Wall. There's a sign up confirming that the Chief Rabbi is happy that walking through the scanner does constitute a violation of the Sabbath. However, going up to the Temple Mount is a no-go according to the Chief Rabbi. Not (as I understand it) because the Dome of the Rock Mosque is up there, but rather because you might accidentally step on the Holy of Holies (given that its exact location is unknown).

The Wailing Wall was a little quiet the first time we were there, but a return visit on the Sabbath was (as you would expect) a different matter (the guy at security was also a bit more fastidious, he seemed keen for me to declare that I had a knife with me - I had to disappoint him). A steady stream of people poured into the area in front of the Wall from the three separate entrances. There were very distinct groups gathered to pray and sing. One chap seemed to be some form of youth leader who got a whole bunch of people singing and stood on a chair so the women on the other side of the fence could join in too.

Real sights

There's no end of churches in Jerusalem - most of which seem to claim be somewhere significant (down to where Mary's parents used to live...). The apparent competition between denominations gives you the feeling of a land grab. Everyone wants their piece of the Holy Land. You can't help feeling that less would have been more. The most poignant sites for us weren't the various churches but the undeveloped bits which gave you an insight into what things may have looked like. Places like the 2000 year old olive grove at the bottom of the Mount of Olives which may well have been Gethsemane (the Mount of Olives is otherwise fairly devoid of olive trees as it turns out and very full of graves of people lining up to be first to see the Messiah).

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He is not here

The gospel stories culminate with the resurrection of Jesus. Luke's gospel records the angel telling those visiting the tomb "he is not here". The Bible story then goes on to describe Jesus' disciples going out filled with the Holy Spirit doing all kinds of mind blowing stuff. They didn't seem all that concerned with commemorating the spots where Jesus died and rose again. Presumably they had more pressing things to do!

We visited a few sites in Jerusalem which seek to convince us that x, y or z happened there - with varying degrees of evidence for their claims. The next level are the claims which simply cannot be true. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which is said to stand over the place where Jesus was crucified and buried) has a slab which is venerated as the stone where Jesus' body was laid and we saw a number of people who seemed to be seeking some special intervention from this slab. Sadly I'm told the slab was only put in place in 1810 and there's nothing to suggest that it was put in place because it was in fact the slab where Jesus' body was placed. It seems to show that we like the tangible even though the message is more exciting: he's not here! The fact of his absence from the tomb demonstrates something much more significant.

Symbols can be helpful (as The Garden Tomb - the Protestant rival to the Holy Sepulchre - leaflet reminded us). Jerusalem is great - it brings some things to life, but the real message remains: he's not here!

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We're back

Our travels are starting again. At the end of May we'll hit the road (well rail) again

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